Lou Reed looks to kindred spirit Poe on sprawling ‘Raven’

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Editor’s Note: In Sound Advice, the first Saturday of every month, veteran NEWS entertainment writer Dale McGarrigle, former British music-press writer Adam Corrigan and a revolving stable of NEWS writers review new albums from across the musical spectrum.

“The Raven” (Sire / Reprise) – Lou Reed

Don’t worry. That tapping at the chamber door is only grouchy Uncle Lou, new album under arm once more.

Available in a sprawling two-hour-plus double CD edition as well as the 75-minute mini-version here reviewed, Lou Reed’s latest seems to have pretentious disaster written all over it. And so it initially appears to be, as the “Saturday Night Live” stylings of “Overture” open the album.

But, as the title suggests, and Reed declares, “these are the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, not exactly the boy next door.” Such exquisite raw material is hard to foul-up and, as he has done so unexpectedly frequently in the last decade or so, Reed pulls it off.

Poe and Reed are kindred souls, both demonstrating the same morbid, claustrophobic worldview, suffused with loss. Both show a seemingly supernatural gift for poetic evocation. And here Reed and a veritable host of famous friends conjure a lyrical homage to the master of the macabre; an insane musical play scattering Poe’s poetry among Reed songs and electronic noodlings. Willem Dafoe almost stops the show halfway through with a stalking, creeping update of “The Raven.” Meanwhile, Reed dusts down and rereads “The Bed” from “Berlin,” and Steve Buscemi, Amanda Plummer, David Bowie and many more all drift through.

That Reed sees “The Raven” as far more than an experimental gothic concept album is clear when he says it’s “the culmination of absolutely everything I’ve been working on … of all that came before it.” But the inventiveness of this carnival suggests Reed has not drained his sometimes frustrating, yet seemingly bottomless, pool of talent.

– Adam Corrigan

“Mary Star of the Sea” (Reprise) – Zwan

Billy Corgan is back to making music – and he’s really happy about it. The former frontman of The Smashing Pumpkins – the band that gave us the double-disc opus entitled “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” – might have good reason for newfound euphoria. He has assembled a stellar cast for his latest rock ‘n’ roll fantasy, Zwan, but the premise is too familiar.

In describing Zwan, comparisons to the Pumpkins are unavoidable; however, the resemblance is downright creepy. Just take the original Pumpkins line-up, plug in two indie-rock veterans, David Pajo and Matt Sweeney, stand A Perfect Circle’s Paz Lenchantin in for bassist D’Arcy Wretzky, but keep Corgan at the helm and Jimmy Chamberlain banging at the stern and voila! You’ve created Zwan.

Sonically, the band makes the best rock the Pumpkins never played. But comparisons and an unfortunate band name aside, Zwan lay down some pretty good tracks on “Mary Star of the Sea.” Overall, the album is a defiantly upbeat effort drenched in Corgan’s patented guitar wash and vocal whine. Pajo and Sweeney complement that sound with a nicely double-dipped guitar crunch, although on the album’s quieter tracks, such as “Of a Broken Heart,” Corgan still manages to get his melancholy on.

Lyrically laced with vague spiritual-religious notions and accompanied by album art rife with rainbows and clouds, “Mary Star of the Sea” shows an artist desperately trying to find his happy place – and it’s fun for at least a few listens. Meanwhile, let’s take a deep breath and visualize the summer’s stronger rock releases.

– George Bragdon

“Steal Another Day” (SelecTone Records) – Steve Wariner

Steve Wariner has produced optimistic country music for more than a quarter-century since being discovered by Dottie West while playing bass in an Indianapolis club and signed to his first recording contract by Chet Atkins.

When those legends suggest you have something to offer, it’s pretty much a sure thing.

Twenty-four albums later, Wariner is still living up to those expectations. “Steal Another Day” is both modern-day Wariner and a dose of the past, with five faithful re-recordings of his greatest hits from the 1980s concluding this 16-track offering. This marks Wariner’s first CD since he left Capitol Records two years ago, one produced in his own 2,000-square-foot home studio.

The new offerings bring out the best in Wariner, intricate instrumentation, smooth melodies, hopeful lyrics and a mix of styles ranging from Latin (the title cut and “Kiss Me Anyway”) to gentle guitar-picking (“In My Heart Forever,” a tribute to the late Atkins), to modern country (“Carmelita,” a collaboration with Lee Roy Parnell), to toe-tappers (“Ride This Rocket”).

The five remakes, “The Weekend,” “Some Fools Never Learn,” “You Can Dream Of Me,” “Where Did I Go Wrong,” and “Small Town Girl,” are almost identical to the originals, and suggest that while Wariner has evolved as a consummate Nashville singer-songwriter-musician, what worked in the past still works today.

Steve Wariner will not challenge the pop-culture country stars of the day, such as Tim McGraw and Shania Twain, at the top of the charts. But no one would suggest Wariner lacks superstar credentials as a songwriter and performer who continues to provide country music much of its backbone, and even its soul.

– Ernie Clark

“Electric Sweat” (Columbia) – The Mooney Suzuki

With the recent emergence of groups such as The Hives and The Strokes, the music press has proclaimed that rock ‘n’ roll is back. Sammy James Junior, lead singer for The Mooney Suzuki, takes another tack, proclaiming “We never knew it was missing.”

That’s evident on the New York City band’s second full-length album. “Electric Sweat” is four young guys channeling the ghosts of The Who and The Kinks, Otis Redding and Booker T. & the MGs. Theirs is a sound both old and timeless.

A garage band who wear that term proudly, the Moonies have joined with producer Jim Diamond (White Stripes, Dirtbombs) to create an album that’s an homage to many of the great sounds of the ’60s without being an imitation. As for the lyrical content, as the song “In a Young Man’s Mind” points out, “In a young man’s mind, it’s a simple world/There’s a little room for music, and the rest is girls.”

The Mooney Suzuki isn’t out to reinvent the musical wheel. Instead, they’re quite content to barrel down the rock ‘n’ roll highway, with no eye out for the off-ramps to grunge, kiddie pop, metal, and rap.

– Dale McGarrigle